New Beginnings

I'm running a half marathon!

I completed two races last year - the 5km Race for Life at Trentham Gardens and the 10km Christmas Pudding Run at Cheddleton in November - as well as running two or three times each week on my own or more usually with the girls from Potters Trotters. In the last couple of months, I've also got involved in the local parkrun in Hanley, which has been a great challenge each Saturday morning, as well as lots of fun.

But I like new challenges so now, along with a few of my running buddies from Potters Trotters and the parkrun, I've signed up to take part in the Stafford Half Marathon on the last Sunday in March. I'm already in week 2 of a 12 week training programme and completed 7 runs so far! The training schedule includes 3-4 runs per week, including speedwork sessions, tempo runs, hill sessions and the weekly "long run". I'm slowly learning all the terminology from my training plan and I've even bought a book for my Kindle about running half marathons - full of training tips and ideas for getting round.

I'll gradually be running longer distances for my "long run" each weekend. After volunteering at parkrun this morning, I completed just over 6.5 miles (or a quarter marathon if you prefer!) this afternoon, with a run in the lovely winter sunshine along the Caldon Canal and through Milton. I was really pleased with how I felt at the end of my first "long run" - with enough energy to get home in one piece anyway. I hope that I can gradually increase the distances I am running each week so when we get to the race day, I'll be prepared. I'm sure there will be ups and downs along the way but I'm getting lots of good advice.

So it may be a little while before there are new cards from Rosedawn Designs - most of my free time is now likely to be taken up with training! However, there will be more cards soon and in the meantime, I'll add some training stories to the blog to chart my progress. As with the card making, I'm hoping to raise funds for Cancer Research through my run. My justgiving page is still active so you can donate through there if you would like to support Cancer Research. Any donations would really be appreciated by our whole family.

So wish me luck! I'll post more updates from time to time as I make progress in my training. I'd love to hear from you too!

LizT

PS The title of each blog post on my running and training will be related to one of the songs I've been listening to as I run. I don't listen to music for every run but usually do for my longer runs on my own. Today I was listening to the playlist that Jon and I put together for our wedding and reception in 2009. New Beginning played by the Soweto String Quartet was the music playing as I came into church! It provided me with a great tempo as I started my long run today.